: Neste artigo argumento contra a interpretação muito difundida segundo a qual o ano de 1769 representou um marco na formação da filosofia transcendental e a Dissertação de 1770 corresponde ao primeiro texto crítico. O objetivo deste artigo é investigar a origem das antinomias nas Reflexões da década de 1770. Não se trata de esboçá-las, pois sobre elas Kant é reticente nesse período. Elas são objeto da atenção dele somente às vésperas da redação da Crítica da razão pura. Eu me (...) ocupo apenas com alguns dos elementos que possibilitarão sua formulação e solução na Crítica da razão pura. (shrink)

An ancient cosmological debate lies behind the spatial part of the first antinomy in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Against the Aristotelian conception of a finite universe, a thought experiment proposed we imagine ourselves situated on the boundary of the world: what happens if we stretch a hand beyond the boundary? This article first shows that aspects of this debate persist in the cosmological claims of Huygens, Wolff, and Crusius. With his presentation of opposing arguments in the first antinomy, Kant (...) famously rejected both sides of the debate and asserted that we cannot meaningfully inquire into the spatial boundary of the world. I then argue that the critical-period Kant nevertheless does not simply dismiss the issue of an outer boundary of the world: he rather reconceives it as the question of the boundary of the legitimate use of our cognitive faculties. The cosmological question of the boundary of the world is transformed—from Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation through his Reflexionen of the 1770s to the first Critique—into the critical question of the boundary of reason. -/- . (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to confirm that it was Hamann's translation of Hume's "Treatise" (I.4.7) which triggered Kant's critical turn in 1768/69. If this is indeed so, then Kant's inaugural dissertation must be reassessed, in particular the doctrine, to be found there, that we have cognitive access to the intelligible world. This doctrine is part of a strategy for tackling the problem highlighted by Hume; that there may be conflicting principles at work in the human mind, i.e., an (...) antinomy. The dissertation's strategy failed and so raised the question of how categories can refer to objects. (shrink)